Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like previous Senators I welcome Ms McGuinness to the House. Given that her contribution focused heavily on agriculture, what work she would do with her Six County MEP colleagues to achieve the best deal for Irish agriculture and the Irish agrifood industry throughout the island? Ms McGuinness spoke about food labelling, and substantial transformation holds that a product originates in the country where it last underwent a substantial working or processing resulting in the creation of a new and different article of commerce having a name, character or use different to its constituent materials. This terminology originates in the WTO and in EU legislation governing the EU custom code. It can only be amended at EU level. Has Ms McGuinness had any consultation with the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the national codex commission in Ireland on substantial transformation given its importance particularly with regard to country of origin food labelling?

Ms McGuinness expressed concern about rural development funding and Senator Wilson mentioned the Leader programme. The European Court of Auditors report in 2010 regarding the Leader approach to rural development stated the potential added value of a partnership was not achieved in local action groups, LAGs, where decision-making was dominated by local authorities. It felt rules were required to ensure partnerships are not dominated by local authorities at project selection meetings. What is Ms McGuinness's opinion on the alignment proposals of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, and what they will mean for Leader programmes and rural development in Ireland, given that local development companies have expressed grave concerns about them?

It would be remiss of me not to ask about the promissory note deal and the rejection by the ECB of the Government's preferred option for the restructuring of the Anglo Irish Bank promissory notes. What is Ms McGuinness's opinion on this? How can we foster solidarity in a Europe of equals when the Irish people feel very hard done by with regard to the European banking institutions?